Manuel

Learning, building, and sharing what I hope will serve my children one day

Interdisciplinary software architect

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

“By wisdom a house is built,
and through understanding it is established;
through knowledge its rooms are filled
with rare and beautiful treasures.”

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

@marvinblach Living here since 1 week, but I feel like no one speaks German

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

@yaminfouzi Good point, but parents need to be aware that homeschooling alone will not solve the problems, but can make it worse. I wrote extensively about it:

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

https://t.co/y6FDK7Q1Dp

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

JUST IN: Pope Leo XIV will meet with Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah next week to discuss AI.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

Even though AI advances me by a 10x, it motivates me everyday to try harder because a 100x feels within reach

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

Offshore wealth right now works through trusted entities, legal protection and individual tax optimisations. Can someone explain how ZEC can solve this?

[Cypherpunk ($CYPH) @cypherpunk]

"To put the upside in perspective, estimates of undeclared offshore wealth are at least $10 trillion.

If private digital money captures even 1% of that value, you’re talking about a $100 billion network.

If it captures 10%, you’re talking $1 trillion. The problem Zcash targets is not niche, but the market currently assumes it is."

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

A culture that shifts from owning to thinking. Intellectual competition instead of material competition. A focus again on what it means to be human. Think. Judge. Create meaning. Like it was in Greece. Like it was during the Renaissance.

Greco-futurism is how I imagine it.

[Pablo Antonio @PabloAntonio]

Greco-futurism is asking ourselves “what would the ancients build with our technology?”

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

I break it down:

We still argue about consciousness and have the same questions 3,000 years after Aristotle.

Science discovered a lot, but can't help with consciousness.

It's not about AI finding an answer.

Philosophy is not solvable, because there is no bridge between the subjective and the objective.

But it's enough if people think that AI is conscious.

Two-thirds of Americans already attribute some consciousness to ChatGPT. Over a third globally say an AI understood their emotions.

From here on, AI will just get better at understanding you.

What gets worse is the research on consciousness, because the next generation of philosophers will be trained by AI.

[Henry Shevlin @dioscuri]

Big personal news: I’ve been recruited by Google DeepMind for a new Philosopher position (actual title), focusing on machine consciousness, human-AI relationships, and AGI readiness, starting in May. I’ll continue my research & teaching at Cambridge part-time. Absolutely stoked!

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

Jedes Werkzeug, das uns schlauer machen soll, macht uns am Ende dümmer.

Schrift sollte das Gedächtnis verbessern. Hat es ersetzt. Suchmaschinen sollten Wissen zugänglicher machen. Jetzt merkt sich keiner mehr was.

Durch AI verlernen viele, selber zu schreiben und zu denken, während es gleichzeitig wichtiger wird als je zuvor.

Welche kognitive Fähigkeit bleibt dem Menschen noch?
Vielleicht Urteilen.

Das braucht ein breites Verständnis der Welt

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

https://t.co/y6FDK7Q1Dp

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

@zerolore @LuganoPlanB Lugano > Zug

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

The tech complex and its political arm going after Rome.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

AI is not just a tech story.

The Vatican has never assigned a personal advisor to the pope for a major technology. For AI, it did.

In the shadow of AI headlines, the tech industry and the Vatican are debating who gets to define its meaning and direction.

Why? Because AI touches a wide range of topics, including man, God, knowledge, consciousness, the economy, science, and more.

This topic may seem too abstract to many, but I think it matters because both institutions have high leverage over industry and politics. It will affect how AI is shaped and used, and what role it takes in society.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

A paradox: articulation becomes more important with AI, while at the same time it gets worse.

Like the invention of writing worsened memory.

Like the search engine worsened retaining facts.

Memory, then articulation, then synthesis.

And it accelerates asymmetries. Only a few will get better at writing through AI.

What cognitive capacity remains for humans?

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

@xydotdot Good post.

The paradox is AI will worsen writing skills for most. Only a few will sharpen theirs.

Like a pharaoh said to the inventor of writing: it won't improve memory, it will replace it.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

@FT Soulless city. I prefer Lugano.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

@k0k1eth Zug is soulless. I prefer Lugano.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

AI is not just a tech story.

The Vatican has never assigned a personal advisor to the pope for a major technology. For AI, it did.

In the shadow of AI headlines, the tech industry and the Vatican are debating who gets to define its meaning and direction.

Why? Because AI touches a wide range of topics, including man, God, knowledge, consciousness, the economy, science, and more.

This topic may seem too abstract to many, but I think it matters because both institutions have high leverage over industry and politics. It will affect how AI is shaped and used, and what role it takes in society.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

I don’t understand the ignorance of some people towards AI.

AI can already takeover 11.7% of US wage value.

It does not yet.

But if it does, we would see 5x more layoffs than we see currently in tech.

With improved models, potentially reaching 20 Trillion tokens per model until 2030, estimations are that 20-30% of US wage value can be automated.

It will affect approx. 40% of jobs world wide, in some developed countries even 60%.

Additionally, AI will hyper-accelerate asymmetries.

Those who master it will dramatically outperform everyone else.

For everyone behind, the only hope is that they developed to a fully human being, and not a narrow worker.

The latter will be left behind in an obsolete world with nothing left to save them.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

Soon, or perhaps already, evaluations max out which, means we will lose the ability to measure progress and risk.

Will things get out of control?

[Deedy @deedydas]

Claude Mythos just obliterated every single benchmark in AI. I can't believe what I'm reading.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

Probably the most underrated skill in a changing world. AI will accelerate this need. Narrow specialization is fragile.

[Incentivising @incentivising]

Pattern recognition is not the highest form of intelligence. You've been lied to. The highest indicator of intelligence is synthesis: the ability to connect topics coherently, allowing for the creation of new ways of approaching a problem or a situation. Everyone can see patterns. Few can connect them properly.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

The synthesis of the great books of the western world: Broad education, not narrow job training.

Specialization is a 20th century phenomenon. Before it was called slaves. Much of history trained people for function, not for freedom.

Many leaders now say the same in modern words:
adaptability, creativity, cross-domain thinking.

It’s upon us to educate for strength and change, not only efficiency.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

AI sparked a debate about generalism vs. specialization.

I think most get it wrong. Here is my synthesis:

Specialization is fragile, generalism is anti-fragile.

Generalism, built well, creates more upside in a changing world than downside.

A thread.

[Manuel @manuelcoca_]

Fat tails matter here.

Rare and extreme events shape outcomes more than most people think.

AI and latest geopolitical shift speeds up this kind of change.

So adaptability is not just a nice extra.
It is becoming core.